The disclosed invention relates generally to ink jet printing mechanisms, and more particularly to a particulate filtering, vacuum noise muffling system for an ink jet printer.
An ink jet printer forms a printed image by printing a pattern of individual dots at particular locations of an array defined for the printing medium. The locations are conveniently visualized as being small dots in a rectilinear array. The locations are sometimes called "dot locations," "dot positions," or "pixels". Thus, the printing operation can be viewed as the filling of a pattern of dot locations with dots of ink.
Ink jet printers print dots by ejecting very small drops of ink onto the print medium, and typically include a movable carriage that supports one or more printheads each having ink ejecting nozzles. The carriage traverses over the surface of the print medium, and the nozzles are controlled to eject drops of ink at appropriate times pursuant to command of a microcomputer or other controller, wherein the timing of the application of the ink drops is intended to correspond to the pattern of pixels of the image being printed.
In order to provide edge to edge or "full-bleed" printing, media vacuum hold down systems are employed to hold print media to a media transport mechanism or a platen, since conventional pinch rollers can smudge wet ink.
Considerations with the use of a vacuum hold down system include noise produced by the vacuum source and the dispersion of ink aerosol that is suctioned by the vacuum source from the print zone.
There is accordingly a need for a quiet vacuum hold down system that reduces dispersion of ink aerosol.